Gabe highlights the issue
- its not easy to identify a paid editor with one or two edits only
- Google home is the service creating the issue
- this issue is just that first sentence.
flagged revisions would work here to stop the immediacy but would never
guarantee that a good faith tidy up by an editor reviewing and edit would
actually identify the problem. Ok a flagged revision bot could do a
cursory check and pass all non lead paragraph edits to reduce the backlogs
but it still needs a human and one thats skilled to identify paid editors.
To solve the issue maybe we need google to be looking at a cache of an
article not the current version, that both works for us in managing this
issue and for google in preventing its service being ambushed... We'd have
to create a way to for humans to review leads less than x weeks old.
This ambush editing isnt the same as paid editing where all article content
is susceptible and should be treated differently, now one has succeeded we
can assume others will also try then without even warming up the beans we
can be assured that someone will play the negative side of the game as
well. ie "Whopper is not as popular as the big mac made fresh on demand at
mcdonalds"
On 15 April 2017 at 18:58, Gabriel Thullen <gabriel(a)thullen.com> wrote:
Paid editors have been adding content to Wikipedia for
a long time. Some of
them might even be doing so in accordance with the rules and guidelines,
but that is not what makes this case stand out.
The PR agency did a total of three edits, and the third one managed to pass
under the radar. They deliberately inserted text with minor grammatical
errors to bait an editor into fixing it up while at the same time leaving
it as an introductory sentence. The TV ad came out one week later.
What disturbs me is that Wikipedia is being instrumentalized by these big
corporations, and we do not need to debate whether the text is factually
exact, if it is sourced, or if it is too peacocky. Most of us are volunteer
editors, and we must make sure that we do not have to waste our time
rooting out these malicious edits.
The PR company wrote the text to make it look like it was put there by some
ordinary "grammatically challenged" fanboy. A contributor reverts the edit
the first time around, saying rightly that it was too promotional, then
fixes up the grammatical errors the second time around. Other contributors
would no longer touch the article seeing that a community member is already
watching over it.
We will have the check out the introductory sentences in hundreds of
articles. When somebody asks Google Home "what is xyz..." in their own
voice, Google will very obligingly spew out the Wikipedia article. IMHA,
that is the real issue here. These paid editors are quite willing to turn
Wikipedia into the worlds biggest high-tech distributor of junk mail.
Gabe
On Sat, Apr 15, 2017 at 8:36 AM, Peter Southwood <
peter.southwood(a)telkomsa.net> wrote:
So the Americas favorite burger should have been
"America's Favorite
Burger(tm)". Agreed.
Cheers,
Peter
-----Original Message-----
From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On
Behalf Of FRED BAUDER
Sent: Saturday, April 15, 2017 8:21 AM
To: Wikimedia Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] [arbcom-l] Where is WMF with pursuing
companies
that offer paid editing services
"The Whopper, also known as America’s favorite burger, " is a problem as
it implies that the Whopper is the favorite burger of the American
public.
Perhaps it is, but that is a trademark, not the
result of a survey. The
other stuff, "a flame-[[grilling|grilled]] patty made with 100% beef with
no preservatives, no fillers and is topped with daily sliced tomatoes and
onions, fresh lettuce, pickles, ketchup and mayo, served on a soft sesame
seed bun." happens to be factually true and cannot be said of the
products
of, say, McDonalds where the "fixings"
arrive in delivery trucks.
Fred Bauder
On Sat, 15 Apr 2017 08:06:50 +0200
"Peter Southwood" <peter.southwood(a)telkomsa.net> wrote:
James,
Which parts of those statements to you consider factually inaccurate,
and which parts do you consider misleading in some other way?
Cheers,
Peter
-----Original Message-----
From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On
Behalf Of James Heilman
Sent: Friday, April 14, 2017 5:32 PM
To: Wikimedia Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] [arbcom-l] Where is WMF with pursuing
companies that offer paid editing services
Wikipedia is not for sale. We are not simply another advertising venue
available to the corporations of the world. We have mechanisms for
corporations to suggest changes to our content and it is called the
talk page.
Lets look at the changes likely made by Burger King staff in more
detail:
In this edit this sentence "The Whopper is a burger, consisting of a
flame-grilled patty made with 100% beef with no preservatives, no
fillers and is topped with daily sliced tomatoes and onions, fresh
lettuce, pickles, ketchup and mayo, served on a soft sesame seed bun."
<https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Whopper&type=revision&diff=
773836335&oldid=773833110>
was
added not once but twice. And than was added again following its first
removal.
In this edit this sentence "The Whopper, also known as America’s
favorite burger, has a flame-[[grilling|grilled]] patty made with 100%
beef with no preservatives, no fillers and is topped with daily sliced
tomatoes and onions, fresh lettuce, pickles, ketchup and mayo, served
on a soft sesame seed bun. Whopper and America’s Favorite Burger are
trademarks of Burger King Corporation.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Whopper&diff=
773807497&oldid=773585358>"
was added.
One of the accounts did not disclosed their relationship to the
company in question. And yes this is spam, so they did spam Wikipedia.
See [[WP:PEACOCK]]
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Words_to_watch
#Puffery>
and [[WP:NPOV]]
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Five_pillars>, the latter of
which is pillar number 2.
This is not the first time the marketing department at a multi billion
dollar company has tried to adjust our content for the company's /
shareholder's gains. A few years back a couple of the heads of
marketing at Medtronic
<https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/08/wikipedia-editors
-for-pay/393926/>, along with a number of physicians one of whom they
had paid more than a quarter of a million dollars, tried to remove the
best available evidence regarding vertebroplasty, a procedure which
medicare spent at the time more than a billion dollars a year on.
Half a dozen paid editors working together can easily get a majority in
many of our decision making processes.
Our readers deserve a Wikipedia which is written independently of the
subject mater in question. Our readers have been harmed by undisclosed
paid editing in the past. These are individuals typically less savvy
and less wealthy than the executives at a large corporation. I am sorry
but our readers are the ones that deserve our attention and our
protection. We already have the Wifione case
<http://www.newsweek.com/2015/04/03/manipulating-wikipedia-promote-bogu
s-business-school-316133.html> were Wikipedia was used to promote an
unethical Indian university and therefore we played a role in
misleading the students who applied. We must do better.
James
On Fri, Apr 14, 2017 at 5:23 AM, Gnangarra <gnangarra(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
but they didnt spam, nor did they introduce any
false hoods, or
remove controversial content, they just put a description of the
Whopper for the opening sentence. As Andy said rather than biting
and creating arguments amongst ourselves would it not be better to
have used the opportunity to benefit the community in a positive way.
On 14 April 2017 at 18:44, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> On 14 April 2017 at 11:38, Andy Mabbett
<andy(a)pigsonthewing.org.uk>
wrote:
>
> > A far better (and less WP:BITEy) outcome would be to get then to
>
>
> Pretty sure WP:BITE doesn't apply in the case of deliberate abuse
> for clear purposes of spamming.
>
>
> - d.
>
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